


country disappeared

by arabybizarre



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: 4x02 Reaction, 4x02 spoilers, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Nicole waits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabybizarre/pseuds/arabybizarre
Summary: Another one-shot exploring Nicole's experience during those 18 months, 3 weeks, and 4 days.Spoilers for 4x02, of course.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 6
Kudos: 136





	country disappeared

**Author's Note:**

> A few things:
> 
> 1.) There are already several of these fics posted already, which I think is a testament to how much the last episode hooked us. I wasn't going to post this, but it's already written, so... why not?
> 
> 2.) So many unknowns to skirt around here. I tried to be vague about some of the big ones, such as what the hell is going on in Purgatory or where Jeremy and Robin might be. Other things I just rolled with regardless of how soon they'll be invalidated. Just wanted to indulge my imagination a bit.
> 
> 3.) This is titled after a great Wilco song. Give it a try if you've never heard :)

It takes roughly 14 days before she can admit to herself that, yes, something is very wrong this time. 

It’s a testament to just how crazy Purgatory is that Nicole’s come to expect the impossible, inexplicable, and otherwise absurd in her life so readily. Life in this town has never been simple, especially not when you’re tied to the Earp sisters, but Nicole’s come to appreciate it in an odd way.

The thing is, with the Ghost River Triangle falling apart all the time, she’s kinda gotten used to it. Another threat to her mortality? Too bad the hospital doesn’t have a frequent-flyer program. Wynonna’s saving the world? Been there, done that. Waverly, the love of her life, is an angel worthy of Eden? That’s hardly a surprise. 

With every catastrophe is another survival, and with each new survival comes the feeling that, hey, maybe in a way they are all a little invincible. Maybe what happened to Dolls was an aberration. Maybe the rest of them… they’ll make it through.

Maybe that’s why it takes her 14 days to realize.

_ This time is different. _

* * *

“God, you have no idea how happy I am to see you,” Nicole breathes out as soon as Nedley pulls her into one of his stiff but bearlike hugs. He holds her even tighter than she expects, throwing her off balance. The cast on her leg already makes it hard enough to stand straight.

“Mostly in one piece,” Nedley assures her, pulling back shortly after to assess the damage to his favorite officer. “What the hell happened?”

Nicole looks over his shoulder, distracting herself by glancing at the pictures hung on the walls of the Homestead. When her eyes land on the one of their whole family together, before Dolls was gone, when things were still chaos but just a little bit calmer, her throat tightens. 

“Fell down a big hole,” Nicole quietly explains. She can’t get into the rest of it. The zombie-like scientists, the sort-of-interdimensional gate, the decision she made to send Wynonna off alone. 

Nedley guides her to a chair, fussing in that gruff but fatherly way of his, and somehow it makes Nicole feel much better and much worse all at the same time. 

She tells him what she can. She even asks if he wants whiskey, but for once, he declines. Repeatedly, she tells him  _ they’re coming back. _

“Wynonna tried to explain it to me. Mystical, maybe biblical garden. Disappearing Harry Potter stairs. I just…” he sighs, scrubbing a hand wearily over his face. “Where could they be?”

That’s the million dollar question. Are they still stuck in the garden?  _ Trapped _ even? Are they hurt, are they alive— 

“If I knew—I mean,  _ really _ knew—I’d be there with them. Screw my damn leg.” Frustration and anxiety capsize in her chest. “It’s been weeks, Nedley. This isn’t normal. They should’ve come home days ago!”

It comes on suddenly. Her eyes burn with it, her throat starts to close again. Stubbornly, she wipes at her eyes before the tears even fall. 

Randy, sitting across from her, reaches forward and pats her knee. “You’re right. They should’ve. And I don’t think they’d leave you here alone if they had any say in the matter.” He sighs again (or maybe it’s a groan) and leans back in his seat. “You know… I think I might take that whiskey after all.”

She shifts as if to rise, but he waves away the gesture, telling her to direct him to the drinks instead. It makes Nicole feel helpless in a way, just like those tears she can’t stop from falling. When he returns from the kitchen, it’s with a bottle and two glasses, which he promptly fills.

Sliding the second tumbler across the coffee table between them, he says, “We’ll look for them, together. I promise. But, kid,” he takes a hearty sip of his drink, not allowing any time to savor it, “I’m afraid we might have some other problems on our hands in the meantime.”

Nicole’s brow furrows as she takes her own drink. “What now?”

“Well, it’s Purgatory, so… everything but the kitchen sink.”

* * *

She makes sure Rachel has a place to stay.

With Nicole keeping watch over the Homestead, her own house is mostly unused. It seems only right to let Rachel hunker down there for the time being. The girl is hesitant at first, still not knowing much about Nicole, the Earps, and whether or not she can trust them fully. Starting off their relationship with a lie hadn’t helped with that. However, Nicole’s offer comes with only one condition—keep her grumpy cat company—and it’s almost too good to pass up. So Rachel accepts.

Calamity Jane loves Rachel. Nicole realizes this the first time she’s healed enough to actually make it over to the house for a visit. It’s been a month, and the leg, while still a nuisance, is something she’s used to. 

“She’s really warmed up to you,” Nicole notes with unconcealed surprise. Calamity Jane tends to like women more than she likes men, but that’s not really saying much. To date, the cat has only really been affectionate with Nicole. And Waverly.

Rachel takes a seat on the couch, Calamity immediately hopping into her lap and making herself at home. “I guess so. I assumed she was like this with everyone. A lap cat.”

Nicole laughs. “Not quite.”

They talk for a while, eat dinner. Nicole makes sure that Rachel is fed—no dumpster dives required. She hadn’t planned on staying much longer. After weeks of being shut in at the Homestead, a weapon always within arm’s reach, her stomach twists at the thought of being away. Anything could happen without her there. Her family could finally return. Or more than likely, some of those bastards that had been wreaking havoc in town could show up instead.

Technically, it was a sheriff’s job to protect the town from assholes like that. But she hadn’t been well enough to perform her duties recently. And from what her deputies tell her (those that haven’t left), the role of sheriff might not hold as much weight as it once did. 

But Nicole likes talking with Rachel. She’s intelligent and sassy, but also vulnerable when you least expect her to be. In these ways, she reminds Nicole of Wynonna, which also reminds Nicole how much she likes taking care of Earps. 

At some point, long after the sun has set and the takeout containers are emptied, Rachel, in one of those unexpected moments of vulnerability, plucks up the courage to ask, “How long is it okay for me to stay here?”

Nicole meets her gaze for a moment, then glances around the house. She’s a tidy adult, but when she was Rachel’s age, she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—dust a shelf to save her life. Rachel’s kept the house clean though, much to her surprise. And Calamity likes her.

And Nicole likes her too.

She shrugs. “However long you need to?”

Rachel frowns, running her hand idly down Calamity’s back, much to the cat’s delight. “I can’t pay you anything.”

“Did I ask for payment?” Nicole softens at the expression on Rachel’s face. Maybe the girl likes it here, but she’s also very aware this isn’t her home. Maybe nowhere is home, when your family is gone. “Do you want to leave?”

Rachel hesitates before admitting, “No, not really. These are pretty cozy digs, even if the town is a hot mess.” 

“Yeah, I’m supposed to fix that, I think,” Nicole mutters, sinking back into the loveseat. Her gaze drifts lazily over the room again, landing on one of her favorite photos of her and Waverly.

“Is it your job to fix everything around here?”

Nicole looks away from the photograph. “Sometimes it feels like it. But maybe that’s just me.” She notices Rachel watching her and gives a genuine—albeit small—smile. “I don’t want you to leave either. And I don’t want any money. I just want you to stay here for as long as you need.”

“That’s really nice of you,” Rachel says quietly. “And I think I’m kinda hardwired to resist generosity. Maybe it’s a teenage rebellion thing. But I also think Calamity Jane would be really lonely if I left. So… I’ll stay.”

Nicole smiles a little bigger. “Stick around long enough and you might figure out what makes Purgatory so  _ fun.”  _

* * *

Months pass, almost six. She doesn’t spend her days simply waiting around for Waverly, Wynonna, and Doc as she used to. She can’t. Not just because it makes her crazy and really,  _ really  _ afraid in a way she’s not willing to acknowledge; but because there are other people depending on her.

She throws what resources she has at the sheriff's department (which is, unfortunately, not much) into trying to find Jeremy and Robin, forging ahead at every dead end. 

She teaches Rachel little lessons. How to cook for herself, how to  _ properly _ handle a firearm, and even how to drive stick shift. The subject of Rachel going or staying isn’t brought up again by either of them (Calamity is far too attached now).

She drinks whiskey with Nedley and listens to Chrissy’s embarrassing high school stories about Waverly, hurting all the while, but not so terribly that she doesn’t also laugh.

She sees Mercedes now and then, getting royally shitfaced each time. 

She lays flowers at Dolls’s grave often, sitting there and seeking counsel as she might have when he was still alive.  _ What do I do next? What am I missing?  _ she asks him. She doesn’t get an answer, of course, but just something about being there brings her clarity.

She talks to Gus, too, because when Wynonna and Doc return, she needs to be prepared with a log of all the Alice things they’ve missed. 

The calls with Gus tend to be the hardest. Not because Gus is any sort of wreck. Through it all, she’s always steadfast, always strong and optimistic, and manages to home in on Nicole’s emotional state so keenly that the younger woman can never get away with a single “sourpuss look.”

What’s hard is looking at Alice, watching her grow. She has Wynonna’s nose, and thick, wavy hair the exact shade as her mother’s. Her eyes are the same shape and piercing blue color as Doc’s. Every time Nicole sees her, she sees the little girl’s parents, and thinks about what Alice will miss if they never return.

She can’t let that happen.

“She recognizes you now, you know,” Gus informs her, shaking her from more maudlin thoughts. The older woman bounces Alice in her lap while the baby stuffs Cheerios into her mouth. “She sees your picture pop up on the laptop and she points and babbles.”

Nicole smiles. Alice is very talkative. Nicole doesn’t know enough about the development of babies to know if that’s typical or not. But in her mind, she likes to attribute it to Wynonna’s genes.

“I hope that’s her saying she’s happy to see me, instead of  _ ‘Not this lady again’.” _

Gus chuckles, wiping away some of the slobbery Cheerio dust on Alice’s chin. “That’s not what you’re saying, is it?” she asks the baby. “You’re saying, ‘Hello, Aunt Nicole!’” 

_ Aunt Nicole.  _ Her heart fluttered a bit when she’d heard that the first time. It warms her to see how readily Gus has accepted her into this family. And that was even before the embarrassingly teary call in which Nicole had revealed Waverly’s proposal to her.

Gus tickles Alice’s belly and the girl laughs, freely and beautifully.

Would she laugh like that if she knew her parents and her aunt were lost somewhere, perhaps somewhere there’s no coming back from? Could she ever understand such a thing?

She won’t have to, Nicole reminds herself. Because they’re coming back.

* * *

Nicole has always had nightmares, but they’re something else entirely now. Where they used to be mainly about Bulshar, about the fire, now it’s an amalgamation of different things. Still the fire, yes, but also the zombies in that damn lab. Also the streets of Purgatory alight with gunfire. Also the thought of Waverly— _ her _ Waverly—trapped, screaming, begging.

Someone can only live with that for so long before deciding it’s too much, that they can’t live and look at themselves in the mirror without doing something. Anything.

She’s thought about returning to the lab in Monument before. Wynonna got through that door once. Couldn’t she? Shouldn’t she at least try?

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Rachel warns her during one of their frequent dinners together. “Actually, that’s a straight up trash idea. And this is coming from the person who lived in that hellhole.”

“Why is it such a bad idea? If the doorway… portal thing was activated once, it could be done again! In theory at least.”

“Okay, well, the place was still crawling with zombies when we managed to get out of there—just barely—and we have no clue if that door really went where it was supposed to. Or what was on the other side.”

“Waverly was on the other side,” Nicole says, a little too sulkily, she knows. She shouldn’t have had that third glass of wine.

“Nicole… we don’t  _ really _ know that.”

Nicole looks away, squaring her jaw. Rachel’s not wrong. But she wants her to be.

“Actually, I was thinking.” Rachel starts, her voice tentative. “Before I found my mom, I managed to find some of her research. She had so many ideas, so many theories. The doorway they built at that lab—she thought it was just one of many. There could be lots of doorways like that, lots of entryways and exits.

“So it could be that your family, they’re not even stuck there anymore. They’re just a little lost. Or taking, like, the world’s longest detour.”

Nicole does consider this. Rachel could be right about that too.

Damn the kid for being so smart. 

“Don’t you think it’s possible?”

Nicole looks at her eventually, conceding, “Yeah I guess.”

* * *

But she’s desperate. Truly. They’re closing in on a year now.

A year without the love of her life. A year without her best friend. A year wherein Purgatory—a town built for close calls and brushes with death—is finally, truly crumbling, and all on her watch.

Nicole feels like she has nothing to lose. She leaves a note for Rachel and sends an email to Nedley—on a delay—providing a contingency plan if either the zombies or the interdimensional portal eats her.

How incredibly stupid of her to go it alone. Realistically, she knows this. She sneaks through the facility, armed to the teeth, hesitating only when she passes the grate she’d fallen through.

What if she never fell? What if her leg was never broken, and she was healthy enough to charge into Eden’s back door?

Might she be with Waverly right now? But then Wynonna might be the one stuck here alone, or worse.

Nicole shakes her head. She can’t accept that either.

The facility is fairly quiet with the exception of a few stragglers. Until she gets to the basement, and things take a turn for the worse.

She stands at the threshold of one of the control rooms for a minute, not yet detected by the ravening swarm of zombies ambling just beyond. Then she double—triple—checks her weapons and ammunition. 

Explosives? Check. Tactical knife? Check. Enough firearms to survive the apocalypse? Check.

But she hesitates. She’s just one woman, and there’s no telling how many of these things stand between her and her destination. Is it even plausible to think she can survive this? Or is it suicide?

Then a memory strikes her, suddenly and forcefully: Waverly, smiling back at her from her front porch.

Why it’s  _ that _ particular memory, she can’t say. But in that moment she knows that her head is useless. She needs to let her heart do the thinking this time.

* * *

As it turns out, her heart is useless too. For even though she fights her way through a swarm, even though she manages the seemingly impossible, the damn door still won’t open.

She’s tried everything she can think of.

Everything.

And nothing makes any difference whatsoever.

Later, when she returns to the Homestead, bruised, aching, and still bleeding from an ugly cut in her shoulder, Rachel and Nedley are both there waiting for her.

She almost turns back around.

“I told you.” Rachel reminds her. “I told you how stupid an idea it was—and I’m a teenager! Even I knew!”

Nedley just stands there and shakes his head. “Do you know where the first aid kit is?” he asks Nicole. “I only know where the pads are.”

She quirks a brow in confusion. Her head is pounding. In the other room, Rachel slams a cabinet and fills a glass of water.

“Under the sink in the kitchen, actually.”

Randy leaves for the first aid kit just as Rachel returns with a glass of water, which she thrusts ungently into Nicole’s hands. 

Together they fix her. Or try to.

Truth is, Nicole is still pretty dazed. It hasn’t hit her yet that after all that, the door just refused to open. And Waverly still hasn’t come home.

All she wants is to fall into Waverly’s bed, hug a pillow to her chest, and cry. But Nedley and Rachel won’t allow that.

The younger girl scolds her like a seasoned mother hen. Nedley, to her surprise, reserves his chiding. Normally, he’d be right there beside Rachel, reminding her just how much of an idiot she was. But for some reason, tonight, he’s pensive. Quiet.

Eventually, Rachel leaves for home. For Nicole’s home, if she can even call it that any more (she can’t really), but Nedley stays. Just as he had 11 months ago, he walks into the kitchen and retrieves a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

Sitting across from Nicole, he fills them both, taking one in hand and sliding the other across the coffee table. The silence stretches before them, Nicole too weary to fill it.

Then Nedley surprises her. “I’m leaving.” 

“What?” she asks dumbly, the glass caught halfway to her mouth.

“Purgatory. I’m leaving Purgatory for a bit.”

“What—why?”

“Do you really gotta ask?” Nedley wonders, then sighs at Nicole’s baffled expression. “It’s not safe here for Chrissy. This isn’t the life she wants. And I know she’s a grown woman now—she probably doesn’t need me. But it’s not exactly safe for me either.”

He downs his whiskey, then pours himself another few fingers. Nicole waits for him.

“That last injury—the one with Wynonna—it took a lot outta me. Too much. I’ve felt nothing but tired ever since. And you gotta believe me, I want to stick around to help you, kid, but I don’t think I’m much help at all right now.”

After a moment spent clenching her glass too hard, she asks, “How could you say that?”

“Because it’s true. I’m a bit long in the teeth these days, in case you haven’t noticed,” he drawls. “I’ve got an old hunting cabin about an hour outside of the Ghost River Triangle. Chrissy and I are heading there for a bit. I don’t imagine she’ll stay too long. She’ll head to the city to stay with friends, I think. But it’ll do me good to rest there for a while.”

It’s hard for Nicole to swallow, but she forces down her whiskey. “I see.”

“But you know I’ll only be a call away, if you need—“

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. But I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Nicole tersely tells him. There’s a hot feeling in her stomach and a cold feeling in her chest. 

“I hope you can understand—“

“You know what,” Nicole stands, almost unsteadily, but she holds her ground. “I’ve had a really long day. And my head hurts. I think I need some rest too.” 

Nedley sets his whiskey down on the coffee table, unfinished. After a moment, he stands too. “You’re right. It’s late. I should be getting home to Chrissy.”

Nicole’s not so petulant that she doesn’t let Nedley hug her when he leaves. But she is stubborn enough that she waits until she’s alone in bed, in the dark, to allow her tears to flow freely.

* * *

She says it first to the empty room.

It’s been 16 months, and Nicole’s still following the same routine. She washes and folds her clothes, she makes her bed (Waverly’s bed) in the morning, she tidies the throw pillows in the living room, and even washes and dries all her whiskey tumblers. But why? Why observe the ritual trappings of a normal, comfortable life when not even this breathless old house is alive to do so? 

And so she sits at the kitchen table, glass empty and firearm near, staring at the still ticking clock, and says, “They’re not coming back.” 

It’s a whisper at first, shy and reed-thin, but then she clears her throat and tries again. “They’re not coming back.” 

_ “They’re never coming back.” _

She rises then, a little buzzed and a little braver than she’s been in some time, feeling as if she’s just let the monster out of the closet. There’s some mystic power in giving fear—or harsh truth—a voice. The house even gives a little groan in response, as if moved by her power (or just by a gusting wind). 

She leaves her glass in the sink, unwashed, turns off the light in the kitchen, and mutters all the while.  _ “They’re not coming back this time.”  _

It feels right at first, to abandon the ritual. To spurn this laughable imitation of normal she’s submitted to for over a year. An act of defiance. She’s earned it. All those nights alone, all those nightmares. All those times she reached out for Waverly’s embrace to find cold, empty sheets.

She sleeps soundly, doesn’t even dream. But then the next morning Nicole wakes with a start, remembering her hard-fought admission, and the wave breaks over her. 

Guilt. Shame. Despair. As if in just  _ saying _ those words she’s somehow vindicated the Garden that took Waverly from her. Or she’s surrendered faith in her best friend and Doc both, for her no-confidence vote in their ability to  _ save _ Waverly and each other. 

She doesn’t take it back, not quite. Because how could she? Those words live in this house with her now. 

As if to appease them, she makes the bed extra neat, smoothing out every last crease with trembling hands. She washes the glass in the sink, too.

* * *

“Would they think I’m an idiot for staying?” she asks Dolls’s grave. “Everyone else left. Most of the police force. Mercedes. Even Nedley. And Jeremy… god, I should’ve looked harder for Jeremy and Robin. Why didn’t I look harder?”

The wind whistles, kicking up a powdery drift of snow. It came down hard for a good few hours the night before. Nicole watched it from the porch, clutching a drink in her hand while pulling one of Waverly’s blankets tighter across her shoulders. For a moment, she’d actually wondered: had Purgatory ever seemed so quiet before? Had any place ever seemed so quiet?

Now she can almost hear Dolls’s voice, as she so often does during these visits.  _ “There’s still Rachel,”  _ his ghost reminds her. 

Nicole frowns, then sighs. “Yeah… there’s Rachel.” Thank god there’s Rachel. Thank god there’s their dinners and their lessons and their worrying together. 

She hates to say it, because truly, she wouldn’t wish her sorrow on anyone else. But sometimes it's good to talk to another person who’s lost everything they’ve ever cared about. There’s solidarity in that. 

“Am I supposed to do this forever? Sometimes it feels like I’m punishing myself, staying here waiting. It barely even feels like waiting anymore.”

Nicole pulls her coat tighter around her when a chill wind blows through, rustling the now-wilted flowers on Dolls’s grave.

“I could do with a sign. Anything at this point. I’d take anything.”

* * *

One time, she heard Jeremy say that if you’re looking for a sign, you’re guaranteed to find one. It could be anything. That’s just confirmation bias.

So, when a group of masked assholes sneak onto Earp land to ransack her home, she takes it as a sign.

They’re quiet when they arrive. She probably wouldn’t have heard anything, except she was already lying awake from a bad dream, and she’d accidentally left a broomstick propped up by the back door. 

When the broomstick falls, it echoes through the whole house. Nicole leaps out of bed instantly, reaching for the pistol she keeps by the bed. Peeking through the curtains covering the window, she sees shadowy figures around the back of the house.

She can hear one too. Whoever knocked over the broom isn’t smart enough to keep his mouth shut otherwise. He hisses a curse just loud enough that Nicole can hear it. She shakes her head.  _ Idiots,  _ she thinks.

Truth is, they probably think they’re pretty smart. Pretty strong too. She’s willing to bet they run with the same group that hung those poor men outside of Shorty’s last week. Same men who broke into the sheriff’s department and trashed the place.

But she wasn’t there when that happened. And they don’t know what it’s like to fuck with Nicole Haught. 

* * *

What does it say about her that she doesn’t hesitate in killing them? She waits until they draw weapons, as she’s been trained. Waits until they fire. And then she shoots, and doesn’t think twice.

Afterwards, there are three bodies. The ground floor of the Homestead is dark, and she’s sitting with her back to the wall that still reads “Valdez.” Nicole knows that her heart is pounding, knows that her hands are shaking and just a little bit numb. She’s aware of these things in the way you can look into the window of a lighted house and know that it is warm.

But she’s cold and feels a thousand miles away.

“Why did you have to come  _ here _ ?” she asks the strangers dead on the floor, her voice cracked open like an egg. “You could’ve gone anywhere.”

Nicole covers her face with her hands and thinks about signs. Jeremy, in his Jeremy way, would tell her it’s useless. But Waverly is just as smart as Jeremy, and she believes in signs.

Would she look at this and tell Nicole it’s time to leave? Would she be able to look at Nicole at all, for what she’s just done?

“I can’t,” Nicole whispers. “I don’t want to.”

She drags the bodies out before daybreak, taking care to give them a proper send-off.

She pays Rachel a visit then too, tries to convince her that Purgatory isn’t a safe place for her any longer. The younger woman just digs her heels in.

“But you’re here,” she argues. “That seems safe to me.” 

Calamity Jane doesn’t disagree, but Nicole is starting to. She just doesn’t voice that worry in the moment. 

She’s spent so much of her adult life playing the protector, but what does she protect these days, other than some old plot of land? And even in that she’s failed to some degree, spilling blood where once she might have simply apprehended the intruders. They weren’t demons after all. Just masked men. 

Nicole feels sick. Rachel has come to see her as a protector, just as Waverly had. Just as Wynonna had. Just as so many residents of Purgatory had. 

What would those same people think of her now? 

“I’m just one person,” Nicole reminds her.  _ And I can barely take care of myself lately, _ she wants to say, but instead opts for, “And Purgatory’s full of surprises.”

“Well,” Rachel shrugs, and smirks like they’re not surrounded by constant pandemonium, “I like surprises. Don’t you?”

Nicole rolls her eyes, exasperated. “Not so much these days,” she huffs. It’s an understatement. 

* * *

Nicole doesn’t spend much time trying to convince herself they’re coming back. She dedicates her energy to fortifying the Homestead, Purgatory itself. To maintaining some semblance of moral authority in town that in just 18 months’ time has gone from civilized to lawless. Ruthless.

She hovers over Rachel, too, whenever she’s able.

She doesn’t fantasize about passionate reunions any more than she fears the inevitable. But she still makes the bed every morning, washes and dries the dishes, and all the rest.

Of course, it finally happens when she’s not even thinking about it. She’s inspecting one of the chairs in the front room. The leg is loose, but by her estimate, not at all beyond repair. She’s got some time today. She could fix it quick—

She’s so used to the nothingness around the homestead that the movement outside rouses her from her thoughts instantly. Not that of an animal. Something bigger.

A person.

“Son of a bitch,” she mutters, already too tired for this. Without thinking, she grabs the shotgun she keeps by the door, and storms out onto the porch.

“Eat shit, shit-eater! I’m warning you, no trespassing!”

The sun’s in her eyes, the glare off the snow blinding for a moment. But then that body steps out from behind a tree, and she loses her breath.

_ Waverly. _

  
  



End file.
